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Front-running Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain revealed that he was unaware that China had nuclear weapons. The revelation came in an October 31, 2011, interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS Newshour.

"President Obama said Tuesday that he will decide whether to approve or deny a permit for a controversial 1,700-mile Canadian oil pipeline, rather than delegating the decision to the State Department.

"The Supreme Court [Monday] decided -- for now -- not to get involved in ongoing litigation over California's endangered delta smelt."

"A federal judge [Monday] upheld new rules designed to protect West Coast salmon and steelhead from three widely used farm pesticides."

"ELDORADO -- Gold prospectors chasing $1,600-an-ounce flecks in river bottoms east of Charlotte also might be sucking life out of the streams, experts say."

"The Obama administration announced Monday that it has extended nearly 1,400 deep-water oil and gas drilling leases to make up for delays caused by last year's Gulf spill and a subsequent moratorium on some offshore exploration."

"Back in February, the Parnell administration told a judge that Cook Inlet beluga whales didn't need the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act because the state was perfectly capable of protecting them itself, in part because of the Alaska Coastal Management Program. But in a notice belatedly filed in the case Friday, the Alaska attorney general's office acknowledged the state had lost that conservation and enforcement tool four months ago."

"Belgium's political parties have reached a conditional agreement to shut down the country's two remaining nuclear power stations, owned by GDF Suez unit Electrabel, a government spokeswoman said Monday."

"The Interior Department plans to issue a proposal soon forcing companies to reveal the chemicals they use in the so-called fracking drilling process on federal lands, as the Obama administration responds to public safety concerns over the shale exploration boom."

"Last week, we wrote about the likelihood that the $300 billion 2012 Farm Bill would take shape weeks before 2012 even begins, in the form of a dashed-off bill swept into the larger 'super committee'-driven deficit-cutting process. As this week starts, that troubling prognosis remains."